


and in them i am eternity

by orphan_account



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Cecil is Inhuman, Four Horsemen, M/M, Other, and so are all the other named characters for that matter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-16
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-25 13:11:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2623007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lately, Death has taken the name Cecil, tried it on for size. Or maybe that's always been his name, maybe he's been Cecil since time began. Time is just a little bit funny when you're what he is. Whatever he is. Perhaps as soon as he chose the name it had always been his.</p><p>Regardless, Cecil is Death and Death is Cecil, and he has always known that he and three other riders will come together at the end of the world and herald the Apocalypse. But until that time arrives, they're all very separate. Very different. Very distinct.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. death has never fallen in love before

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [of small death and](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2439983) by [piggy09](https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09). 



> Two things. First: this is a bit of an odd AU. A friend and I were talking about 'end of the world' AUs and this one sprung up... and then it ran away with me. This one will have a lot of people dying of illnesses (and all sorts of other things), but not always in great, graphic detail. I won't go nuts on that front, but a lot of unnamed characters are going to die in un-fun ways, thought I should put a warning here.
> 
> Second: some elements of this fic were inspired by _of small death and_ by **piggy09**. I'm doin' my own thing here, but this fic really really inspired me and without it this story would not exist in the form it is now, or, you know, exist at all other than maybe in a tumblr post like 'wouldn't it be cool if...'
> 
> You should totally read it, if you know anything about Orphan Black, or if you just... like really cool fics with incredible prose.

They will all, theoretically, ride together at the end of the world, but until that time arrives, they're all very _separate._ Very _distinct._ Very _different_. They could pass one another on a crowded street in the city or on the way out of an ice cream shop in a sleepy desert town and never know it for sure, if one didn't want the other to know.

But there's always something that gives that sort of thing away.

Blood oozes from the corner of an eye, lovely strands of hair fall out in clumps, and Death falls in love. Instantly.

He doesn't mean to, of course. Cecil has never been one for that kind of thing. He maintains a clinical distance until it's time to get intimate – until it's time for someone to die. Never his palms sweating, never his heart pounding, never his eyes widening or pulse quickening. Not that any of those human bodily functions would happen anyway but that's not the _point_.

The point is that this man is different. Outwardly he looks ill. Sick-but-not-dying. A sneeze shakes his entire being, shakes him to the core, but Death knows he's... _strong_. As strong as a man can be. Despite outward symptoms and slightly-greying hair, this man shows no signs of anything actually being _wrong_ with him. Usually when Cecil passes the sick, they weaken further. He brings them to their end. Not now.

No, there is something about this man that is so very _not for him._ Not yet, anyway. Not into the near future.

So that's weird.

“Excuse me,” the man says, polite as can be, and Cecil steps aside to let him through the door to the ice cream shop before going in.

Inside the scene is pretty... dramatic. More dramatic than Cecil's used to, if he's honest. Everyone inside is coughing blood or writhing on the ground, eyes wide with fear as their sudden sickness overtakes them. Cecil decides that this is the most beautiful thing he's seen in a very long time. Since before the human race came into being.

Death can see the lungs of the would-be ice-cream-eaters ripping open like bright red flowers. They spit, they shake, and then, slowly, they die.

Cecil greets each one, offering his hand to help these newly-lost souls to their feet. Then he takes them away.

To wherever human souls go.

Cecil doesn't really know. He's never been human, or had a human soul, or he doesn't _think_ he has.

Admittedly it's been some time since Death came into being. He doesn't exactly remember his own origins in great detail.

Just the origins of everything else in Creation.

–

The man in the ice cream shop he now knows is named Carlos.

That's a chosen name, by the way, not a given one. It's like Cecil's in that respect. He doesn't know Carlos' given name but he doesn't need to. _Carlos_ is enough. Carlos is more than enough. He rolls it around on his tongue, back and forth, testing it. Car- _los_. _Carrrrrr_ -los. Two syllables that he can stretch out into eternity if he really wanted to.

“Sorry about last time,” Carlos says, sheepishly touching the back of his neck. He has more hair this time, and it's all perfect. Dark and curled with a touch of distinguished grey. Cecil smiles and Carlos continues, “I'm usually out of the way by the time you show up but I was a little slow or... the illness was a little quicker than I thought it would be.”

Cecil doesn't really know how to take that. So he doesn't. He just smiles and says something like, “That's okay, it was a really neat plague.”

And then he cringes at himself because _neat plague,_ really? That's what he's going with?

But Carlos either doesn't notice or doesn't mind. He seems pleased with himself. “I made it myself,” Carlos says and...

_Oh._

Oh _my._

Cecil's heart-- does Cecil even _have_ a heart? Let's try that one again.

The feeling of a heart in Cecil's chest on the left side, right where a heart would be if he was a human being, goes _thump-thump_ against the inside of his chest, behind his not-ribs, up against his not-sternum. Then again, faster. He looks humanoid right now. Humanish. Something like that. It doesn't matter. He's all tawny skin and brown hair and sweating palms. And all those are human features.

“It's just basic science,” Carlos goes on and Cecil says _mhm_ like maybe he agrees.

Death knows very little about science in the abstract, much less in detail.

So Carlos must be _really_ smart. Death looks at him adoringly, this moment's brown eyes wide as he plays with the ponytail he decided to have just for this purpose, twirling hair around his fingers.

Beautiful _and smart._

Cecil has thought lots of individuals were beautiful. But he's never fallen in _love_ before.


	2. death with a capital letter

Death hates when he has to bump into War.

War always wears the same look as Cecil, see. That's part of why Cecil hates seeing him. Death doesn't know, however, if War puts on the same facial features and hair colour in order to aggravate him, or because he wants to copy him, or if it's something else entirely. But today, in this fraction of a second, Death is dark of eye and skin and hair with a silver streak like a skunk's stripe.

And so is War, more or less.

“I haven't seen you in a _while_ , Cecil,” War says in greeting, and Cecil grimaces like he's tasted something terrible.

“It's been like nine seconds.”

“That's a while. Usually I see you much more frequently,” War shoots back and in his defence, yeah, that's true. People die in battle _all the time_. Cecil glances around. They're in the desert. That figures. Lately he meets War in the desert more than anywhere else. He remembers when it was jungle, or that rainy island off Europe, or someplace cold or or _or_. “Anyway, these guys were caught up in a blast. They're all shaky! Look at them laugh, they're laughing _so hard_ that there are tears in their eyes.”

Crying, more like, but Kevin has never been able to tell the difference. Cecil assumes that's just part of being War.

One by one, four men stop breathing. One by one, brain activity ceases. One by one... they die.

“Welcome,” Cecil says with a flourish of his hand as they catch sight of him, “to the afterlife.”

Four men look around, one-two-three-four of them.

“I'm here to take you... onward,” Cecil explains. That's part of his job, being psychopomp. He likes that part. He likes all parts, _really_ but that part is special. It has a special place in his not-heart.

Death is not what any of these four men expected. Cecil can tell. Adjusting his sparkling silver sunglasses he holds out a hand to the soldier nearest to him, and the soldier takes it with only mild hesitation. “Do not look for any period of time at the hooded figures,” Cecil warns as the four of them begin to walk away from the sun-scorched battlefield. He hopes these four men will listen. He knows that at least one will likely not listen.

The hooded figures fit the motif of _Death_ better than Cecil does appearance-wise and dead human beings always stare at that sort of thing.

\--

The next time he sees Carlos, Death is freckled and red-haired. Carlos looks the same as last time (still perfect in face and form with dark, delicate skin), except he's hunched over a little, like he can't quite stand up straight. His fingers tremble and he coughs a little bit, but Cecil knows he's really just fine.

No matter what symptoms Carlos displays he's always just fine.

“I've made another plague,” Carlos says and Cecil grins. Carlos grins too, and it reminds Cecil of the sun rising. “Hospitals are good for it.”

And they _are_ in a hospital, aren't they? That... that makes sense, actually. Cecil doesn't always pay attention. One place is much like another. People die in every corner of the world, after all. People die in all sorts of places.

“So you're really death?” Carlos asks.

“Death,” Cecil corrects. “Capital D.”

“Right, Death,” Carlos says, a smile playing at the corners of his lips, threatening to form for real.

“And yes, I am Death,” Cecil confirms, just in case the correction wasn't confirmation enough. He considers asking who Carlos is-- given name not chosen name-- but decides against it. Carlos doesn't need to be anyone or anything else. Carlos can just be Carlos and that'll be okay.

“I can't believe it took me this long to meet you,” Carlos says, touching his neck again (must be a nervous habit, Cecil decides, and decides too that it's an adorable and very human habit). “I admit I may have been intimidated. You're old as creation, after all.”

“Creation,” Cecil corrects with a smile. “Capital C. And you can call me Cecil, not Death, if you like. Just so you know.”

“I had planned to ask that next, what your preferred form of address was.”

“Oh, clever Carlos,” Death says, voice reaching sing-songy tones, the sort which he had never heard from his own lips before. Then he collects the ICU patients he'd come for and moves on. Death, after all, is always moving on. So many places to be.


	3. death by no other name

It's been a while, almost twelve whole seconds, since he's seen Famine.

She's usually pleased to see him. She _usually_ is. They're friends, Cecil thinks. He likes being able to say he has a friend and Famine is the best friend in all of Creation.

Regardless, Death approaches Famine with a smile in a back alleyway in a little part of Europe that Cecil has named Luftnarp because he can't ever keep _track_ of where human beings draw their borders. They're _always_ changing maps around.

He's been around a long time, after all, seen the rise and fall of empire after empire after empire, nation after nation after nation. City-states and independent territories and nomadic tribes and so on and so forth. The maps are seemingly _always_ getting re-drawn.

 _Anyway_ , though.

Famine. Luftnarp. Alleyway.

A woman coughs, and that's all she has the energy for. Famine runs fingers through her brittle hair, whispers words of kindness into her ear. The woman trembles, she can't hear Famine's words because Famine exists on a different plane of existence and always will.

Cecil waits patiently. Famine's a little more in a hurry. She won't stop whispering. She whispers things like, “I've been there. I've been there. It'll all be over soon. Just like that. It ends.”

And, well, she's not wrong. Everything ends. You know, _eventually_.

As those words are whispered, the woman ends, and Cecil holds out a hand to help her to her feet. He's not what she expected. He never is.

“Dana. It is so good to see you again,” he says as he departs.

And Famine nods. _You too._

They don't always cross paths. Not given her nature. Famine is a broad concept, after all, and it doesn't always end with a visit from Cecil. People can starve, and starve, and stay alive for a very long time. Comparatively.

–-

He meets War again at a sports game, just outside a stadium, a few blocks away. There's yelling, and thumping. Kicking and shattered glass bottles. Blood, spilled beer, vomit on the ground.

War is, of course, wearing the same facial features Death is. Cecil stopped being surprised by this a very long time ago. It used to scare him at first but now... now he's begun expecting it.

This time they're both dark brown in skin tone, dreadlocks adorning their heads. Cecil's eyes are brown. Kevin's are all-black, like obsidian. That's the one bit of him that doesn't match. Cecil is grateful for the little things, unsettling as those little things might be. War is wearing a vest, which Cecil almost funds funny if only because that's not what people expect from War. They expect combat armour or bulletproof underclothes or camouflage. Cecil knows, though, that there are lots of ways to go to war.

Cecil is not wearing a vest.

So that’s another little thing.

 _Cecil,_ War greets in the form of one angry sports fan cracking another across the jaw with his fist. Nobody's died yet but since Cecil has arrived War knows it's just a matter of time.

 _Kevin,_ Death replies as a man smashing a bottle over someone's spine.

Kevin's watching the scene oh so intently. Coal-coloured eyes flitting back and forth from face to face, eagerly awaiting the inevitable, so curious about who will leave this downtown city block in handcuffs, who will leave in body bags. Someone's called the police, he's sure. Maybe the police will bring guns, or sticks, or those electric-shock guns.

Cecil waits with his arms crossed. He, of course, knows precisely why he's here. _The woman in the red t-shirt over there, and those two men by the road who don't yet know that the guy they're rushing is carrying a knife well-concealed._

“Cecil!” Kevin scolds. “Don't _tell me_ who it's going to be! I was in such suspense!” But the sound of a scream draws his attention once more as blood hits concrete. That's one. The other man, however, sees the flash of metal and turns tail.

War's eyes widen and he turns to Cecil, smiling proudly like he's glad Death was wrong, like that matters. Cecil just shrugs. It doesn't. Matter, that is. He'll take that riled-up sports fan. If not now, then later.

He'll take even _Kevin_ in the end. Eventually. A long way down the road, long after he's taken just about everything else. That's who Death is, after all. Nothing is safe forever, not even War (or Famine or-- _no, don't think about that_ ).

"Think about what, Cecil?" War asks as he approaches Death carefully, a hand outstretched and sharp nails digging into his near-double's cheek, drawing blood only because Death has chosen such a humanish form. Death does not flinch as War harms the physical shell. He's stopped doing that long ago as well, now he just leans into the touch as if pain were something he could work with. Death's hands are cold as his title would imply. But War's are warm like fire, like newly-spilt blood, like atomic bombs.

"Nothing," he responds evenly, and when he kisses War he tastes victory and loss all at once.


	4. death loves with every fibre of his being

Cecil takes nine hundred and forty-seven victims of illnesses-- all sorts of illnesses-- before he sees Carlos again. Not that he was counting.

Carlos is still perfect. His nose is running, but he's perfect.

Cecil is Semitic in his features, hair curly, and he's picked green eyes just because he likes them. He likes all eye colours, though, really, so perhaps that fact wasn't worth mentioning. Whatever. That's not important. Here is what's important: Carlos is in a lab coat. Carlos has been in a lab coat _every_ time Cecil's run into him. The shirt under it is different, a t-shirt this time, with some words and an image that Cecil doesn't really notice. His attention is on the lab coat. Carlos is so smart, so it just stands to reason he'd dress smart, too.

They meet in another hospital. This one is pushed to capacity, with the sick and injured overfilling proper beds and makeshift cots. It's a war-zone, which means Kevin is probably around, too. Somewhere. Or maybe not. Maybe Kevin is where the bombs are.

Carlos is a few strains of flu, and he's lupus, and he's all sorts of bacteria, ready to infect open wounds already filled with shrapnel.

Cecil is only ever Death.

And true, Death comes at all sorts of times, and takes everything, sooner or later.

(Everything that is in any way alive, anyway. Cecil's always wondered what will happen once he's taken everything in Creation but...

Well...

That's later. Much later. And he can't take himself, he's sure. Maybe he'll just... stop. Maybe he will simply cease to be. My, wouldn't _that_ be something?

But for now, he _is_.

Carlos is.

The woman on the cot, dying of a fever, she is too. For the moment.)

“Hi again,” Carlos says, sounding almost embarrassed. Or just sheepish. “I am not causing this woman to die of infected wounds for personal reasons. I have a question. Famine told me a long time ago that--”

“You know Famine?” Cecil interrupts.

“Of course. We're similar enough that we cross paths. And War and I. Famine and War, presumably. There's room for overlap.”

“Right.” There's a sense ot that. Cecil supposes. But that means he was the last to meet Carlos and isn't that a tragedy? A real tragedy? “Anyway, what did Dana tell you?”

They have point-oh-six seconds before the woman succumbs to her infection. That's long enough, though, for a conversation, when you're Death or Pestilence, and can stretch point-oh-six seconds out near-indefinitely if you wish.

“That we'll be ending the world one day.”

“Yes. Well, sort of. _The world_ isn't quite it, though. I've always suspected mistranslation, back when people believed Earth was all there was, when they looked up at the void and saw Heaven in the stars, instead of possibilities. The universe is vast, Carlos. Nearly endless and ever-expanding. Creation stretches on and on, out and out forever, right? You're the scientist, tell me if I'm wrong here.”

“No, you... you are correct,” Carlos responds and Cecil grins.

“Forever and ever and ever, the universe is so vast, and _that's_ what we'll be ending one day. All of it.”

“Oh,” Carlos says, and he sounds disappointed. Or no... maybe _concerned_? Cecil can't tell. The woman with the fever dies while Cecil's considering it, and then he welcomes her to the afterlife.

“Bye, Cecil,” Carlos says.

“Goodbye, Carlos,” Death replies. The woman does not see Carlos, and therefore does not hear Cecil speak to him.

\--

People are, all of them, afraid to die. That's a fact about everyone, really. All living things. What is alive would prefer to remain that way, generally. The living want to keep on living.

People used to offer things to Cecil when he came, in order to postpone the inevitable. Flowers, promises, shiny gold coins, all sorts of things.

Mostly, they've stopped. Cecil's noticed, but he hasn't minded. He doesn't know if people are more resigned, or more skeptical about the nature and effectiveness of offerings to Death (who never looks quite like what they imagine he will).

He still gets things on occasion, though. Sentimental trinkets he accepts with great care as he does what he can to keep one or two people alive just a little longer. It's said he'll even trade years of life for a good story, but that's not something most people figure out.

Famine gives him desert starvation, and hunger strikes, and other things. War just recently gave him Hiroshima, and Afghanistan, and other things. He can thank Carlos for Spanish Influenza, and HIV, and other things.

He loves them for it. Cecil loves Famine and even loves War, and is in love with Pestilence. They give him all sorts. Great offerings to Death and to Pleasedon'ttakemeyet.

Not that he would.

Not until he must.

That is, Cecil thinks, what love _is_.

Love is not killing Dana or Carlos or even Kevin until it's _time_ , until no more delays can be made, until he's killed everything else in Creation. Everything.

 


	5. death must wonder

Death and War fuck amid the damage caused by a drone strike, and it reminds Cecil of civil skirmishes. Of conquests. Of failed campaigns. He wonders what Kevin is reminded of, if anything. He doesn't ask. Kevin will take that for caring, and it's not. It's curiosity. There's a _difference_.

War isn't looking at him, he's staring at a building on fire, fascinated. Cecil hardly notices the flames. Fire isn't alive, and therefore it doesn't die. But Kevin's attention span is different from his own, which stands to reason but...

Well...

Whatever.

Someone falls from a building, or perhaps jumps to escape the flames, and there's an audible crunch of broken legs, but they don't die, so Cecil hardly notices that either.

War notices, though. It's his domain. Cecil's here for several people, but he has point-oh-oh-four seconds before anyone _dies_ and so he lets War fuck him, staring up at his own facial features and feeling his own fingers tug his hair. It doesn't hurt. He feels like it _should_ hurt, the hair pulling, but it doesn't. He notices it in an abstract, distant way, as if he were separated from such a feeling by a thin layer of fog. Except not that, because one can walk through fog. Cecil neither wants to nor ever will be able to reach that foreign sensation of pain.

Which is probably why he's allowed War to scratch and bite and claw and pull on just about every part of him.

\--

“This end of the universe thing,” Carlos begins when they next cross paths, fiddling with his sleeve.

Today he is cancer, and radiation sickness. He's bald (as bald as the man who is currently dying alone in his own bed) and Cecil is irrationally angry about that fact, because Carlos _usually_ has such beautiful hair, but he'll focus on the conversation at hand, if only for Carlos' sake. He wishes they'd talk about something other than the end of Creation, but he doesn't know how to turn that conversation toward Carlos' plans for the in-between times, those free split seconds in-between split seconds.

“Uh-huh?” Cecil asks, because it seemed like Carlos had something important to say. Had he lost the words? Cecil can't really empathise with that, because he's very good with words, but he supposes he can sympathise. If that's what happened with Carlos.

“How will we know when that is... supposed to happen? I mean, _scientifically_ _speaking_ , there must be a sign, right?”

“We don't know. It just _will,_ ” Cecil answers carefully. “When we, all of us, are in the same place, I believe. You and I, Dana and Kevin. All of us. But I don't know much more than that. There are some things you just... do not question, for your own sake, for the sake of others. Because Carlos, do you really want to know?”

Carlos shakes his head like he's agreeing with Cecil but Cecil can tell he _does_ want to know. Carlos wants to know very much.

Cecil doesn't mind the disagreement. But he also doesn't elaborate.

And Carlos does not ask for clarification. Instead he gestures to the dying man and says, “Lung cancer. Small cell. It's terminal, and they let him go home. All he wanted was to die in his own home. And he wasn't even a smoker, you know? This was just bad luck for him.”

Cecil lights up. His smile is so wide it almost looks comical, or reminiscent of War. Almost. Not quite. War would probably think the man was happy to go, and it's clear he's not. He's just resigned. There's a difference. Carlos can probably tell the difference.

“How beautiful,” he comments, reaching out as if to touch the man's cheek. He almost gets there, but not quite. “Everything you do is beautiful,” he adds, turning to Carlos and touching his cheek instead, because he can, and because Carlos himself is beautiful. He'd be more beautiful with his hair back, but his skull is perfectly-shaped as well so Cecil decides hairlessness is acceptable as a temporary physical feature.

Carlos' face reddens, dark skin flushing as Cecil steps closer, leaning his head on Carlos' shoulder.

“Nobody's ever said that about me before. Usually people find what I do sort of... gross. Centuries of medical science have been devoted to undoing and eradicating everything I do. Smallpox, poliomyelitis, just to name a few. Not that I... not that I am complaining. It's very exciting, human scientific advances are _very exciting_. Don't you think?”

Cecil has no idea, but he nods eagerly nonetheless.

“Anyway, even though I'm glad to help further the cause of science, and to make my own discoveries, the truth of the matter is that even War and Famine find me a little... unsavoury when we cross paths. And human beings, well...”

“Fools, then. None of them know what they're talking about.”

“People don't like being sick,” Carlos says with such a reasonable tone, with such a tone of understanding, that Cecil doesn't have it in him to argue.

“They should better appreciate what you give them. Whatever that might be.”

And Carlos smiles at that. “Thank you, Cecil.”

“I would appreciate all of it. If I could get sick... I _cannot_ get sick, not even my human-looking chosen forms can suffer anything resembling illness, but if I _could_ I'd try out ten thousand viruses or infections or... anything you could create.”

“That is... strangely romantic. And maybe even uplifting.”

That makes Death laugh, and laugh, and wish he was mortal just so he could become ill. “I try. So right now you're cancer?” Death asks.

“Yes,” Carlos answers.

“Does it hurt?” Cecil asks.

“Yes,” Pestilence replies.

“My strong, deadly Carlos.”

“What are you right now? You always look the same. Not... not your features, those change each time I see you, but the way you stand, the look in your eyes. It's all the same. Why is that?”

“Because, dear Carlos, Death is only ever Death. I have just one state of being. There are so many _ways_ to die, but those are your domain, and War's, and Famine's, _and_. And. And so on, I mean. Death is the time _after_ the dying. That moment of crossing. Everyone has that, no matter how they die. I can look a little different, but I only have one... one _form_. I can change how it looks if I want, but not what it is."

“Do _you_ ever hurt?” Carlos asks.

“No. I am an end to pain. People stop hurting when they die.”

“Oh. Right. Wait, Cecil... dying hurts.”

“Dying can, sometimes. But I'm not dying, I'm Death.”

It's hard to explain. Cecil has spent all of eternity like this and he's never considered the fact that he is utterly unique. The other Horsemen share commonalities, but Cecil is not like any of them, except in role. He'd feel lonely if not for the fact that Carlos hasn't exactly left yet.

“What _do_ you feel, Cecil?”

“All sorts of things. Regret. Anger. Love. Sorrow. People feel all sorts of things when they cross over, did you know that? I can feel all of that.”

“But not pain.”

“Never pain,” Cecil says, then adds, “Lovely, pain-filled Carlos. May I kiss you?”

“Cecil, I'm _cancer_.”

“And I love cancer. So...?”

“Yes.”

And Death kisses Pestilence as he is, and Pestilence loves him for it.


End file.
